Friday, August 10, 2018

Five Minutes: Find Your Voice

I sat in the back of the church, in what was now her office but was once the crying room, the place where people could be in church with their crying babies but be behind a glass wall. It was her office now. Not much need for a crying room. The church didn't see many babies these days. Mostly the few people who attended had gray hair. Or no hair. They walked slowly. And if they cried, it was oh so quietly.

They did cry. Quietly.

The minister was soft spoken. A kind man. A decent enough speaker but the rare paster who was truly a minister to the people and not an ego driven speaker. But he wasn't here. It's Tuesday. A parade of hopeful teens were getting their voice lessons, hoping to be on American Idol or some other talent show. Hoping to get into the high school musical. Hoping to set the world on fire and be famous.

They didn't know the odds were slim and...to their parent's delight the voice teacher had a rep. She had a track record. She was more than a miracle worker, she was a winner's coach. Some of her students really did go on to stardom. Beauty pageant winner. Broadway star. TV personality. Her patience, her persistence, her insistence drove these young people to ride their own enthusiasm ever upward. There was just one thing everyone needed to do more of. Much more. Much, much more: practice.

"I know you didn't come here to pay me to watch you practice," she said, cheerful and resolved and not at all angry. Her patience was unending. "So maybe you'd like to practice more this week between lessons, sweetie..."

She called everyone sweetie. Or dear. I asked her to call me something else, something she didn't call anyone else, so she called me Honey. And then, soon enough, she started calling everyone Honey.

But that was when I really was her Honey. And that was when she did still help create stars.